Sympathy for the Devil
by Aeanagwen
Summary: There's a term for the condition they have, and it's more than simple denial. Mamori, of Hiruma and his team.


The idea, complete with title, struck at work one night when I was talking to a friend about Hiruma and the Devilbats and certain psychological conditions, and I knew I had to write it.

* * *

Mamori hadn't thought much of the term when she'd first stumbled across it in a psychology book. Then, one day weeks later, she overheard Ishimaru talking to some of his track team friends in the hallway.

"Don't you worry about it? All the guns? I mean, what if he misses one day?"

"Oh, Hiruma never misses," Ishimaru deferred, giving them all a reassuring smile. "Really. You should hear the stories the others tell about some gun shop they found in Texas. I--"

"Ishimaru-sempai, he _kicks _you," an indignant looking teammate broke in. "We've all seen it."

The older boy looked abashed, scratching his head and laughing nervously. "He only does that when he's happy with us. It's just how he is."

The batch of them grumbled in varying degrees of skepticism, and Mamori exchanged a wave and understanding look with him as she passed by. A similar conversation over lunch with her own friends ("Aren't you afraid of him, Mamo-chan?" "What? Hiruma-san? He--well, he's an awful bully and he pushes too hard, but I don't think he'd ever push harder than he knew we could stand...") left Mamori feeling very--thoughtful.

So, like any self-respecting honor student, she'd looked it up again when she got home. Hm.

**o A person threatens to kill another and is perceived as having the capability to do so.**

She tapped her lip with a pencil, the team's opening rally shout ringing clearly in her mind. Hiruma did bluster quite a lot, and the guns were, admittedly, extremely intimidating to the other poor players. She knew he'd never seriously hurt any of his team--at least not any worse than he hurt himself--but they all seemed to cower when he starting screeching and firing off artillery all the same. Thank goodness for Musashi's stoicism; it was a good example to the rest of them not to let Hiruma rattle them too much. 

**o The other cannot escape, so her or his life depends on the threatening person.**

Mamori scowled to herself, thinking of the little black book bristling with colored tags and slips of loose paper. No matter how much she shouted, she'd yet to be able to dent Hiruma's vicious inclination to blackmail. And it seemed image was so _important_ at this age to the people around them. Of course, silly talk and gossip like Hiruma used was, by and large, just that--rumor that would fade when the next Big Thing came along--but everyone took him so _seriously_. It could really get quite aggravating; they were practically enabling him.

**o The threatened person is isolated from outsiders so that the only other perspective available to her or him is that of the threatening person.**

Well, she thought, a bit mollified, that didn't quite fit. They all went home every night, and had school, and any number of things to do in their lives. 

And then she thought of Taki, and the club room full of paraphernalia, and the way they'd had to relate every question to football for him to get it. The others weren't any different. Sena was always running errands related to football, even outside of the games themselves. Kurita and Musashi had, as far as she knew, no other close friends in their own age group outside of their own little trio with Hiruma. Komosubi devoted every waking moment to training. Even she wasn't immune, she had to admit with great reluctance, glancing at the open football magazines on her bed and the notebooks on her desk covered in everything from hasty scrawling mid-game to neat, thoughtful observations made throughout the day to the short reminders she left for herself before bed, things to bring up at the next practice.

Hiruma had pulled them all into his own little world, the one that seemed to buzz in his ears and scratch at his palms (the devil might make use of idle hands, but his own were certainly never still for long) and color everything he saw. He'd opened it up and dragged them in and made it all seem to matter so much, _so much_, and now it was in their heads, all the time, everywhere. It seemed breathtakingly selfish, and yet, deep down, she wondered if it might not be the most generous thing he'd ever done. 

Biting at her lip and very aware of the progression of her own thoughts, she turned her attention back to this evening's subject.

**o The threatening person is perceived as showing some degree of kindness to the one being threatened. **

Well, that was ridiculous. Patently ridiculous. He kicked them when he was happy, for goodness' sake. He cursed at them and bullied them and mocked them, and laughed with a frankly devilish glee whenever they rose to it. There was nothing kind about him at all. 

And that was because kindness wouldn't work, not from him. It would be too strange. After all, where had kindness ever gotten Sena? Oh, it kept him coming to school, but that was probably because he would have been too timid to face her if he'd ever tried to cut class. For all her comforting, it was in the American Football club, even under the cracking of Hiruma's whip, that he was finding determination. And he looked for that, they all did--Hiruma had a terrifying grin, but when it was on your side, you could thrill to it, because you knew that whatever happened next was going to be good, very good. 

No, he couldn't be gentle or forgiving, because then it would all fall apart--but still, he found ways, didn't he? Praise from him was as rare and treasured as--as--well, as a demon's small kindnesses, in point of fact. And the way he believed in them--you couldn't even call it believing, because he _knew_. When he looked at you and told you, _you fucking can, _there was just no arguing. Hiruma had all the certainty of a sniper shot with a scope when he was like that; the absolute surety drove down past the doubt, reached in and siezed the gut and _twisted_, and, just for good measure, wrapped long fingers around the spinal column and pulled it upright on the way out. You can, because when he looks at you and talks like that, you can't _not_. 

Her cheeks were burning. No, no kindness in Hiruma, none at all. She reaffirmed that to herself, and kept reading. The rest of it was description of symptoms, the way captives will begin to identify with their captors out of sheer defensive desperation--

_Juumonji watches Hiruma and Musashi and Kurita sometimes, and when he looks back at Kuroki and Toganou, his eyes are very quiet, even if he's shooting off his mouth._

--and do things to please them--

_Yukimitsu dives for a bulleted pass and lands in a cloud of dust, but when it clears and Hiruma is standing over him with narrowed eyes, he looks up and smiles with pride and vulnerability, holding up the ball he's just managed to catch._

--or try to avoid their captors getting into conflicts with authority because it will only make a tolerable situation suddenly dangerous--

_She's just declared that she's taking Sena and going, and he's gone very still, and suddenly her hand is empty, and his voice is stammering its way to resolve behind her._

--and how over long association, the captives come to know the captor as a human being with needs and motivations, someone who's very sympathetic, really.

_There's that glance at Hiruma sometimes, the one that even she and the other second-years have, that acknowledges and remembers that this is his last chance. No one has to say it; they're a team and they look out for each other, and everyone knows that, as much as Kurita and Musashi want this, Hiruma lives and breathes and sweats and bleeds for it, and there will be nothing fair left in the world if he can't at least have the chance._

The book talked about it all in very clinical terms, and no matter how Mamori tried to argue with herself, there was really no getting around it. That was a bit troubling. But still, she reasoned as she brushed her teeth, watching her eyes worriedly in the mirror, it wasn't as if Hiruma was really dangerous. It wasn't as if he really didn't care for the team.

_It isn't as if we're imagining things that aren't there, _she told herself as she changed and climbed into bed. _Or as if we're only doing this because it's what he wants, _as she set her alarm early enough that she wouldn't miss morning practice.

She nodded to herself as she nestled down beneath the covers. Who cared what some book had to say, anyway? The man who wrote it had probably never played a sport in his life, much less American Football. 

What a silly thing to worry about. Stockholm Syndrome, indeed.


End file.
